My beta test group and I have searched through the book and erratta, and cannot find anything governing how one learns languages, what languages are available, or anything else related to language besides one talent (on the Outlaw tree) "Speaks Binary", which actually only gives you a bonus to communicate with NPC droids (though not PC droids).

In our group, I play a droid, and I wanted protocol droid programming… but couldn't find anything to get one up to C-3PO's many forms of communication.

Finding nothing in the books, we patched-together a home-brew system that works well enough, though it could still be expanded (we used language lists from other online Star Wars sources, or prior versions of Star Wars RPGs):

STARTING: everyone gets Basic and their racial/planetary language, as appropriate.

INTELLECT: each character can take a number of additional languages equal to their Intellect rating.

XP: purchasing additional languages costs 5 XP each.

This didn't get into issues like wookies, who might understand many languages but (historically) have been unable to speak them. Nor does it look at, as one of our players mentioned, "getting the Rosetta Stone software upgrade" for my droid. Even the Cybernetic Brain Implant only gives a +1 to Intelligence (sic), which doesn't help us with the language issue.

Has anyone else come up with a home-brew system that has worked?

As far as languages go in EotE, according to the designers, it's quite intentionally omitted, as it's "not a thing," much like how in the movies we generally see most characters conversing with other species just fine.

I believe there were a lot of ideas bandied back and forth in the Character Creation feedback thread.

You're running into two difficulties:

1) There aren't any protocol (3rd-degree) droid creation rules in the Beta, only 4th-degree (battle) droids.

2) The feel of the game is such that it is totally cinematic. If it would make sense for you to understand an alien species, like Han Solo conversing with Greedo in Chalmun's Cantina, then so be it. If you're on a forest moon with a bunch of bloodthirsty teddy bears, chances are you won't understand their languages or the variances in their tribal dialect. It's up to the players and GM to be creative, sensible, and cinematic.

For example, the GM is perfectly within his rights to rule that only one of the PCs can understand the Wookiee in the party, so that she needs to translate for him. Alternately, it would make sense for a group of fringers to at least understand languages like Huttese, Rodese, Ryl, and perhaps Bocce.

Granted, time spent with a character will give understanding, so even if you don't understand your Wookiee companion at first, you might find that natural immersion in the language helps you pick it up within a period of weeks or months.

So, no, you shouldn't get "X languages = Intellect." That's silly and it's one of the things I disliked most about Saga Edition (there are precious few things I dislike about that system). This is STAR WARS. Humans understand aliens, but unless they're scholars they probably aren't going to be linguistically fluent (or literate, for that matter) so they'll stick to speaking Basic, which EVERYONE—except for Ewoks and various Unknown Region peoples—understands. There are exceptions, and so if your character is exceptional, make the exception.

It shouldn't have to be difficult :-/

JoeLastowski said:

sic ? I don't see any spelling errors in the transcribed text… so sic doesn't apply to the quotation.

Kallabecca said:

I think what he's getting at is that it refers to Intelligence rather than Intellect .

I would still be in favour of a language skill, or a sub-use for the knowledge (education) skill (or Xenology) - along the lines of the WEG solution. As for the d20 solution, its easy and makes it matter more in some ways, but its cumbersome in my opinion.

gribble said:

Heh, sigh… guess I've been playing too many RPGs… that didn't even register. Thanks.

said:

Umm… WEG had a skill called Languages. It was a catchall skill and one could specialize in specific languages. But here's the fun part of it… If you made the roll to understand a language and succeeded a certain number of times (I think it was 5 or 10), then you were considered proficient in the language and didn't have to make any more rolls for it. So, improving the skill didn't add languages to a list. Just made it more likely for you to succeed on the check and acrue more languages that way.

Protocol droids got a large bonus to this skill to represent their sophisticated programming for dealing with languages.

Kallabecca said:

Neat. Fairly easy to model in EotE - as suggested I'd make it a Knowledge (Education) roll and allow a player to spend a triumph to become proficient in the language.

gribble said:

Education really doesn't work that well since education is already pretty narrow - interaction with governement and science knowledge.
Xenology is much closer - but knowing how to interact with someone and speaking their language aren't really the same thing.

Languages really should be a separate knowledge skill. Just because I know the culture doesn't mean I should speak the language, and vice versa.

Further, a Triumph is too high a price.

I'd put it more along the lines of:
des: know a similar sounding language and misinterpret badly.
1f or more: none at all
0s: maybe some pidgin.
1s: simple phrases.
2s: conversational
3s: Extensive
4s or Tr: Near-native

3t: almost indecipherable accent
1t: thick accent
1a: mild accent
3a: no accent (such as the UK's "received pronunciation" or the US "Newscaster accent")
4a: native accent

aramis said:

Actually, I suggested Education because it is specified as the "default" Knowledge skill that should be used for anything not called out under another Knowledge skill (see the second to last paragraph under the skill description on p85). Besides making sense, by the rules (as Language isn't specifically called out as a use for Xenology), this is the skill you'd use.

That being said, I can understand potentially using Xenology, as it does include knowledge about a species culture and how to "interact" with them, depending on the circumstances.

Either way, I think Triumph (if anything) is probably not a steep enough price to pay to become proficient with a language. Note that I'm not talking about being able to make yourself understood (or to understand) for a single instance/check - that simply requires a successful check as usual. The Triumph effect would mimic the rule point out from WEG, whereby you become proficient in the language and don't have to roll again to speak/understand it. If anything, I'd probably increase the cost to be 1 Triumph to become "proficient" for a day/extended scene, 2 for a week/month or 3 permanently.

gribble said:

I think one roll per language per campaign is sufficient - no rolling over and over… Roll once, and stick with it. Perhaps spend some XP to try again. And in such a mechanism, a triumph is improbably rare.

I absolutely would NOT let a player roll more than once in a couple sessions for a given language, and I've NEVER used (in any system) rolling more than once per conversation - not even in the one system that called for every sentence.

You seem to be of the once per conversation mode - and I think that is a bad mode on its face, and leads to some equally bad ideas on how weak/powerful a triumph should be.

Kallabecca said:

Yeah… uhm… my point exactly… The specialisation part doesn't fit in EotE at the time being, but otherwise it should work just fine.

aramis said:

I'd probably phrase it slightly differently as "once per scene", but I think by "conversation" you probably mean the same thing, with the triumphs allowing you to extend the duration of whatever you rool as specified previously.

I think that's an ideal frequency that give the player some benefit for putting ranks into the skill (generally more frequent rolls = more benefit), and is a reasonable analog to the real world. I know when I was in France, that my ability to comprehend what was being said and be understood depended very much on the "scene" - i.e.: the amount of background noise or distractions, how clearly/slowly the other person was speaking, how distracting the other person found my accent, the complexity of the ideas I was trying to convey/understand, etc.

So for me, one roll per scene/conversation is right for both gamist (i.e.: use of the skil the player has invested in) and simulationist (i.e.: it's closer to my experience with speaking/understanding a real langauge) reasons - and a simple "one roll per language" rule wouldn't work for me.

But of course, you're entitled to your opinion, just as much as I am. As much as you think my idea is a bad one, I think your idea is, so I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on what a suitable frequency for rolling is. No issues there.

If you want to be a linguist in this game, I think the creation of a "Linguistics" skill is entirely appropriate. Otherwise, it should be down to an Intellect check, much like attacking with lightsabers is down to either a Brawn or Agility check.

Some of the established knowledge skills might give a character information about languages, but shouldn't inform their ability to speak or comprehend those languages to any significant degree.

This is why there's space on the character sheets for additional languages. This kind of thinking is encouraged by the game, and it makes player characters even more special when you give them their "very own skill," something that is designed just for them. I say, when it comes to Linguistics and Lightsabers, among other things, "just do it."

Two words…Lore: Xenology

Any time the PCs are exposed to a new language, have them roll that skill to see if they know it already…then if they do not but express an interest in learning it, simply allow them to add it to their growing list of known skills after an appropriate length of time.

Giving languages its own skill is problematic because the skill will be of such limited use yet still cost alot of xp…Star Wars has SOOO many languages that any method of "charging" PCs on a per language basis is not going to work. The difficulty can be related to the rarity of the language AND the characters occupation so there is a good chance Luke can understand Droid since he deals with them…but maybe Han can't…while Han is more likely to speak Rodian while Luke is oblivious.

Since even an unskilled person is going to be rolling a dice or two for this check, everyone will know a few languages here and there.

Protocol Droids have 3 Intellect and 3 Lore Xenology…so this works for them as well…on the rare occasion when a roll is failed, oops…you hit one of those languages the programmers missed. 3PO never says he knows ALL languages…

Or you can just let the GM make the call for story reasons…but I like the idea of a skill being attached to it

I didn't explain why I didn't think a separate skill was needed.

First off I think this adds value to a skill which is probably going to be otherwise overlooked.

Also, obviously the language a species uses is a huge part of that culture, so the skill just makes sense.

Mechanically, a separate skill that ONLY regulates Language is open to abuse…since it only regulates that single thing, it will seem less valuable…and since the GM has to allow at least some type of communication to allow a game to progress, it would be easy for players to just ignore it in favor of getting more bang for their buck elsewhere. Rolling it into Xenology should tempt players for whom the skill makes sense by giving them a more immediately obvious use for the skill.

Plus…no skill additions are needed and all NPCs, Droids and classes already have it listed…and any added Language skill would just have to be "written in" in all the same places. A new skill is just redundant.

Argh…too many posts in a row!

I missed where some of you seem to think that knowing a language should require a triumph or some other "cost".

Why? Everybody in Star Wars understands multiple languages…and given how many their are it just seems like alot of headache to put players into a situation where they have to roll to understand every line of dialogue…unless they're lucky enough to roll a triumph. Roll once and move on…let the player revel in finding out his character already knew another language and move on.

To each his own, but the devs clearly wanted a more streamlined action oriented game without tons of frivolous dice rolling so I suggest if you absolutely need a chack for language (I agree something needs to be used) you keep it as simple as possible.